


if i could speak my mind like others do

by veterization



Series: fluff verse [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 02:04:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7147853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles finds an engagement ring and misunderstandings, bad choices, and eventually, mature conversations about relationships are the result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if i could speak my mind like others do

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a bit of a follow-up to the conversation Peter and Stiles have at the end of [make my happiness (i will make yours)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6987448), in which they talk about marriage and generally have a good time. Here is where I take that good time and turn it into drama.
> 
> I really love the idea of Stiles being super afraid of commitment when it comes to Peter since he a) doesn't expect it to happen with him and b) Peter just doesn't fit in his idea of what a committed relationship looks like, and MEANWHILE, Peter loves the idea, is crazy about the attention and flair and hullabaloo of a wedding, and has no qualms about marriage. One of my favorite scenes from the show that gives us a nice amount of insight into Peter's character is near the end of season two where Peter lectures Derek about the power of love and how it can't be underestimated. If nothing else, even if he's not one to feel it himself all too often, Peter is definitely aware of love and believes in it.
> 
> SO, this story is the product of all of that above introspection, with a fair dosage of miscommunication and a flashback tale about love thrown in there too.

It's right after a lunch on an unspectacular Wednesday when Stiles stumbles across the ring. 

He doesn't mean to find it. He certainly isn't trying to _look_ for it, not when he didn't even know it existed, and suddenly this great, beautiful, shining engagement band is in his hand and Stiles is completely paralyzed. He finds it in a half-open ring box in the glove compartment of Peter's car looking for napkins while Peter gasses up and grabs them coffee, a gleam catching Stiles eye, and naturally, Stiles does not mind his own business. He reaches in and grabs it and now he needs to stop his racing heart from pushing him into cardiac arrest. 

He only has about five seconds to stare at it, take in its implications, and _panic_ before he hears Peter's heavy footsteps outside the car. He shoves it back in the box and throws it into the glove compartment and slams that shut like it's a freezer door with a corpse inside it, feeling like someone just slapped him with a slab of ice.

Then Peter's getting into the car, handing Stiles his coffee and settling in behind the steering wheel, stopping only when he turns to frown at Stiles.

"What's wrong?"

And oh god, he knows, of course he knows. He can probably smell the way Stiles is about to dissolve into madness as pungently as if someone had dangled gym socks under his nose. Stiles busies himself with his coffee to keep his mouth from having to answer any questions, and promptly burns his tongue.

" _Fuck_ ," Stiles hisses, wiping his searing mouth and wishing he had a napkin, which is what he was looking for in the first place, which is _all he really wanted_ , for the love of god. He feels like that kid who accidentally found his unwrapped Christmas presents and regrets everything, except now it's a end and Stiles _really_ regrets everything. Why did he have to open that glove box? "I think I just cooked my tongue. Jesus christ. Is it still there?”

He sticks it out for Peter to see, now both in pain and on the verge of a panic attack that he’s trying desperately to keep under wraps, his mind going two hundred miles an hour because he can’t stop thinking about what’s lurking in the compartment just a few inches away from him right now.

“That’s what you get for chugging hot coffee,” Peter says, not sympathetic. He leans in close to inspect Stiles’ tongue, then deems his injuries unimportant. “You’ll survive.” His frown hasn’t disappeared yet, a certain amount of suspicion there. “Are you really all right?”

“Yes. Yes,” Stiles says, even as he’s frantically thinking _no, no, absolutely not_. “I’m totally all right.”

He smiles, or at least _tries_ to smile, and lets Peter grab his hand over the console as usual. Stiles spends the rest of the car ride airing out his burnt tongue to keep from having to speak, all the while coming to a blaring, inevitable conclusion.

Holy shit. Peter is going to propose.

\--

Weirdly enough, Stiles has always been the more emotionally stunted one in their relationship.

It came as a total shock when they started officially going out. Peter would be comfortable telling anybody and everybody about them and all Stiles wanted to do was keep a secret sordid diary that generations past might someday read about their great great grandfather's fleeting relationship with a sexual wizard with a merciless tongue. Peter was comfortable with PDA and affection in a way Stiles never thought he would be, and Stiles was wary and unsure and still just waiting for their just-sex-turned-more thing to revert back into a more-turned-just-sex thing.

It really all hit him the first time Peter said he loved him.

It was 2:14pm on a Tuesday afternoon a little while ago when this happened:

Peter and Stiles were on the phone talking about what to eat for dinner—Peter wanted Italian, Stiles was adamant in his wish for Greek—and reminding each other of that movie they wanted to watch this weekend and that library book Stiles was already overdue on returning, and just as the conversation was reaching a natural close, Stiles throwing in one last plug for Greek tonight, Peter said: 

"All right, I love you. Talk to you later." 

And threw Stiles' world around like a yo-yo.

Those first few seconds after Peter hung up, it felt as if there was an earthquake ripping through Stiles' innards. He had just said it so _easily_. Stiles was still waiting for Peter to call back and admit it had been a hearty joke and laugh it all off, but it didn't happen, no matter how long Stiles stared at the phone and waited for it. He stared and stared and stared until he finally realized that the time for a frantic damage control call to negate everything Peter had just said had passed, and the silence that instead purveyed had a message all on its own: Peter _meant_ what he had just blurted out like it was old news. Old hat. The kind of thing they said to each other all the time. They _didn't_.

Stiles didn't know what to do. He could feel everything from his toes to his hair shaking as he tried to figure out what, if there was an etiquette that came with your boyfriend leaping over a relationship milestone you didn't even know he was aiming for. Love. _Love_. He didn't even know that that word was in Peter's vocabulary.

He sat there pacing and chewing nails and scrubbing at his scalp for so long that he had to start wondering if he had dreamed it all up, if his mind had purely imagined that entire phone call, if he was dreaming, if he was slowly going off his rocker. He eventually reassured himself that it _had_ all happened, every unreal nanosecond of that moment, and turned to something more reliable than his brain's habit of twisting and warping a situation until it was monstering itself into an unconquerable mountain: his police intuition.

All right, so he wasn't a policeman yet, but he had learned a few things from his dad by now, like figuring out when people were lying or insincere or out for personal gain, and if Stiles knew anything at all about Peter, it was that that little declaration had to be anything but genuine. All he had to do was figure out why.

\--

Stiles plans on not talking about the ring. It's the easiest solution, and requires little effort on his part, and may or may not result in the problem fading away into the ethers. He’s going to take his chances and stay mum about everything from the ring to the impending proposal to the fact that he’s had to completely reorganize his assumptions about Peter’s attitude about commitment, and hope and pray that it's a conundrum he'll never have to face head-on.

His plan would've worked better if the people around him weren’t so damn _perceptive_.

He sees Isaac one day later, which is a bad idea for many reasons because a) he didn’t sleep well last night, his mind too loud, and Isaac gets ten times more annoying when he’s grumpy and sleep-deprived, b) if there’s anyone he should be hanging out with when he’s harboring a deep dark secret like it’s stolen merchandise under his clothing, it’s not Isaac, and c) Isaac’s a werewolf and has the irritating habit of figuring out what his secrets are without Stiles even having to divulge them.

Case in point: Stiles lasts about three minutes before his anxiety creates enough of a conspicuous cloud of unavoidable stench that Isaac addresses it.

"What's with you?" Isaac asks. "You look terrible."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Spit it out."

Stiles knows he's going to; Isaac knows he's going to. He might as well just get it out and stop sitting on it like some scuttling crab that's starting to fester in his brain, infiltrate all his thoughts, and keep him from living his everyday life. He gives.

"I think Peter's going to propose to me," he says, then promptly rolls his lips into his mouth.

"What?"

"I found a ring," Stiles admits. It feels like spitting out a block of concrete, like it's some terrible secret that's been sitting in his throat. "I'm pretty sure it's an engagement ring."

"For who?"

" _For me,_ " Stiles says. "I found it in Peter's car."

"Did you ask him about it?"

"No."

"Why not? You realize it could be his, right? Or just a piece of jewelry he keeps in his car?"

"Isaac," Stiles presses, leaning in. "It's huge, it's shiny, and it's not some garden variety ring. It's _nice_. Why is it so hard for you to believe that Peter's planning on proposing?"

"I didn't say it was."

Stiles squints at him. "So you expected him to do it?"

"What?" Isaac says. "Are these my only two options?"

"What did you know about it?" Stiles demands. "I need to know everything."

"I don't know anything," Isaac says quickly. "But it is pretty common knowledge that Peter's interested in you, and isn't exactly into sharing. Plus we've all heard him talk about it."

"Talk about _what_?" Stiles asks. Specifics have never mattered more than they do now, and he'd really love it if Isaac contributed the same amount of urgency to the table that Stiles is.

"You know. Being with you for the long run. Making it official."

All these answers are doing for him is giving him more questions.

"What does that mean, making it official? And who is the _we_ that's heard all of this?"

"Uh, pretty much anybody who's ever been around you two," Isaac says, still so frustratingly _blasé_ about all this. "Look, I don't know anything about a ring. It's not like we went jewelry shopping together for you."

"But Peter supposedly talks about marriage all the time when I'm not listening?"

Isaac shrugs. "Not in so many words. It's just clear to all of us that it would make sense if he wanted to propose to you."

"Why would that make sense?"

"Uh, because nothing says _back off, I'm taken_ better than a big shiny ring?"

Stiles frowns. "So you think this is some ultimate jealousy thing?"

"Uh, no. Look." Isaac sighs, like he's giving in to Stiles' nagging and finally spilling the beans. "He asked me once if I thought you were too young to want to commit. If you would say no if he asked you to... I don't fucking know, go steady."

" _Go steady?_ "

"I don't remember the _exact words_ ," Isaac says, and he rolls his eyes like this isn't a big deal. Like all of this is normal. Like everyone but Stiles has been planning Stiles' wedding for the past few months and he's just now being looped in. 

"What did you say?" Stiles asks.

"That I thought you would probably welcome a little proof from him that he's taking your relationship seriously. I didn't know you were going to wig out like a baby if he did." Isaac has the nerve to look judgmental about Stiles' reaction to the situation. "Are you really freaking out over this?"

"Yes. _Yes_. For the love of God, yes."

All he can see are lavish halls and flowered altars and handwritten vows and matching bowties and that ring, _that ring_ , and yes, Stiles is freaking out.

"Look, this isn't that hard. It's simple."

"In what world is this simple?"

"Either you want to be married to Peter or you don't," Isaac says. "So do you want to be married to Peter?"

Stiles can't even picture it; his brain just refuses. He can see all the individual pieces—Peter in a sharp tux, a large expensive room all his friends gather in, a wildly overpriced collection of ice sculptures—but not all of them glued together. He knows that he and Peter work, has had it proven to him time and time again, but the idea of marriage, holy shit. Marriage is such an old tradition, a convention, and they're such an unconventional, untraditional couple in every conceivable way.

He tries his best to force the images together anyway, to imagine the final product. It all still feels like a farce, even when he tries to picture himself walking down the aisle, picking out buffet choices for the reception, a crowd of people clapping for them when he and Peter kiss for the first time as husbands. It just feels like a great big prank, like something Peter would cook up just to fool everybody for shits and giggles— _hey, let's wear rings and tell everyone we're married and see how they react!_ —and not like a real, actually important thing. Stiles rubs at his eyes, trying to erase the images.

The thing is, he can picture the part that comes after. The living together. The tiny silver bands on their fingers. The sleeping in the same bed every night, and for all the nights to come. The sharing a life. Even if it is making him panic a little bit, he can see it. He just never knew—he never even imagined that _Peter_ of all people—

"This is really fucking with me," Stiles says, still rubbing his eyes like he's trying to push them deep into his skull. "Why is Peter so okay with this and I'm not? You'd think he'd be the one who has trouble with all this—this relationship stuff."

Isaac says nothing, apparently gauging that the situation no longer requires the dry wit he's good at contributing. Stiles wishes he would say something, even if it was some useless adage about how _love is hard_ and other completely pointless comments, if only to tune out the worried blaring in his own head.

"What do I do?" Stiles asks, lifting his head. "What would you do?"

"You should probably talk to Peter," Isaac suggests. "Instead of whining about it to me."

"I'm not _whining_ ," Stiles says. "I'm just—it keeps _throwing_ me that Peter is so into this kind of stuff. Do you know that he reads Brontë sister books? And that he makes me soup when I'm sick?"

"All right?"

"The man is a fucking _romantic_. Plot twist." Stiles throws his arms into the air. "It's _weird_. You'd think he'd be all sex, no feeling, but no, he's entirely gong-ho on slow romance and falling in love."

"It's not that surprising," Isaac says. "He loves grand dramatic gestures. Love and romance fit right in with grand dramatic gestures. And you know what, a wedding is pretty much the grandest gesture you can make.”

Inexplicably enough, it makes sense. Peter loves showing Stiles off, loves telling everybody and their neighbors that they’re together, loves being the center of attention. He would probably bask in a wedding, totally _eat it up_ , and here’s Stiles floating in a black hole because he had never even considered putting the words _Peter_ and _commitment_ together in a sentence before. Peter isn’t the kind of guy you marry. Peter’s the guy you suck off in the back of a car while he tries to convince you to help him kill someone. And even though he’s so much more than that to Stiles, has been for a long time, Stiles still hasn’t made that mental jump from “this guy is the complete opposite of marriage material” to “this guy is the most serious relationship I’ve ever had.” It's _jarring_ trying to now make that leap in a few short seconds.

"Haven't you ever talked about the future before?” Isaac asks him. “Where that demented little relationship you two have was going?"

Stiles lets that jab slide on account of considering what Isaac is saying. They did talk about it, briefly at best, a few months ago. Stiles asked if Peter was happy as things were; Peter told him he was. Things were easy, things were nice, things were uncomplicated. Stiles had been satisfied with the answer at the time—after all, he was young and virile and still in a period of his life where he was making bad decisions left and right, and commitment just wasn't something he had on the brain. Now, Stiles can't help but look back at that conversation and wonder if Peter really meant what he said, if he really was content with how things were. Did he already have the ring then? Did he already know that he wanted to propose?

They need to talk about this. Whatever is going to happen with that ring, it's already a miscommunication nightmare of gargantuan proportions. Stiles can't help but feel a little salty that Peter never even bothered to ask if Stiles was ready for marriage, that he just whirled straight on ahead to engagement rings and proposals, but that's where Stiles' snooping skills come in handy. Something led him to find that ring, so now he needs to take what he knows somewhere where it can be discussed and resolved.

"Yeah, sort of," Stiles says. He thinks back to Cora and Lydia's wedding, how he had been entertaining the idea of what Peter would want their wedding to look like, how he would decorate, how he would lord over wedding planners. It had been funny at the time, not something that was _actually going to happen_. It was one thing to sit there and joke about a nonexistent wedding that would probably never be real, it was something else entirely to realize that said wedding was on the table. "It was never really serious when we talked about it. Just jokes, really."

God, _were_ they jokes? Was Stiles always just assuming so while Peter was watching his every reaction to the idea of a sturdy future together with eagle eyes? Is he going to have to sort through every memory he has of he and Peter taking about their relationship now, looking for clues of Peter already considering marriage?

The panic must show on his face, because Isaac snorts and says, "You're kind of a commitment-phobe, aren't you?"

"What? I'm not."

"You totally are." Isaac points at him. "This? Is what commitment-phobia looks like."

He bristles. Stiles doesn't quite like that, because he never considered himself to be afraid of commitment. Hell, in second grade he was already planning his two-kids-and-a-big-house life with Lydia. People who shy away from commitment have divorced parents and are scared of true love and are still aching to sow their wild oats, and Stiles doesn't think any of the above apply to him.

Maybe it's because it's _Peter_. Everything is different with Peter than it is with any other person. Stiles approaches their relationship differently, doesn't have the same expectations, doesn't assume that any of the usual stereotypes apply, and now he has to realize that they might.

“This is just _hilarious_ ,” Isaac says, like he’s having a genuinely great time here. “The formerly comatose psychopath is ready to get hitched and the young undamaged guy dating him is terrified of the idea.” He starts laughing, and if Stiles was a little more removed from the situation, he would probably laugh too, not that he’ll admit it.

“You know what,” Stiles grumbles. “This has been super helpful. _Super_ helpful. Thanks, Isaac.”

“Glad to have been of service,” Isaac says, then grabs Stiles’ sleeve right as Stiles gets up to walk away and find a legitimately supportive friend. “Go talk to him, you wuss. You’re going to have to eventually.”

Stiles tugs his sleeve back. He hates it when Isaac’s right.

\--

For days after The Incident—Peter casually throwing out a declaration of love over the phone—Stiles was nothing short of baffled. He dodged Peter's calls and invitations for lunch here, a movie there, a baseball game on the weekend. He was confused and at a loss for words and just _not understanding_.

The entire thing seemed very much like it could be a massive hoax, especially noting Peter's rather twisted sense of humor and history of messing with people for personal entertainment, but it hardly felt like it was. If it was, Peter wasn't doing a very good job delivering the punchlines, watching the results, or even calling it off. It just felt like something Peter genuinely meant to say and wasn't trying to get a laugh out of, and Stiles didn't know what to do with that. So he turned to someone who knew Peter longer than he did.

"I'm not sure how to even start," Stiles told Derek over coffee, even though the last thing he needed, shaken as he was, was caffeine. "Peter did something the other day and I just—I'm concerned."

Derek's eyes narrowed. "Did he hurt you?"

"Wait, what?"

"Threaten you?"

"No, none of that." Stiles shook his head. He leaned in closer, like he was sharing a shameful secret he couldn’t afford to let the public hear. " _No_. He told me he loved me."

He stared hard at Derek, waiting for him to properly react. He wasn't. He wasn't reacting at all, he only looked at Stiles as if awaiting a second half to the story. Why on earth did he need _more_? It was already a hellish mystery as it was.

"Hello!" Stiles said, waving his arms around. "Are you listening? He told me, in broad daylight, not post-orgasm, wearing clothes, over the phone, that he loved me."

"I see," Derek said slowly. "And this is a problem?"

"Why are you taking this so well?" Stiles demanded, instantly confused. "Aren't you surprised? Aren't you _suspicious?_ "

"What am I supposed to be suspicious of, Stiles?" Derek frowned, almost like he was unimpressed with the path Stiles' deduction skills had taken him down. "If he wanted to kill you, he would've already done it."

Stiles had, admittedly, already thought about that and ultimately ruled murder out. Unless he wanted the poetic, Shakespearean flair of murdering and betraying a lover, Peter probably wouldn't go to the lengths of seducing, wooing, buying gift cards for, and declaring deep affection to a future victim. Especially if said victim had given him dozens of magnificent orgasms over the past few years. "There has to be an ulterior motive," Stiles persisted. "I just can't figure it out."

"An ulterior motive?” Derek looked at Stiles like he was overestimating himself and what he had to offer. “What exactly is it that you think Peter’s looking to get out of a confession of love?”

Stiles wasn’t sure, and that was the problem. Sex was the obvious answer, but Stiles was already putting out on a regular basis; there was no way Peter thought it was necessary to butter him up with admissions of love. “That’s what you’re here. To help me figure it out.”

“Okay,” Derek said. He readjusted himself on his chair. ”Has Peter recently tried to recruit you into an evil cult?”

“No?”

“Has he been urging you to change your will so he’s the sole inheritor of your earthly possessions?”

“No.”

“Did you tell him you were going to be abstinent until he gets serious about your relationship?”

“ _No_.” Stiles set his jaw, not interested in letting Derek continue. “I’m serious here.”

“So am I,” Derek said. “You’re looking too much into this, Stiles. It’s not a big scheme.”

“But what if _it is_?”

He couldn’t just dismiss that; he couldn’t assume that Peter was being genuine and wasn’t plotting Stiles’ demise and _actually loved him_. Derek was looking at him like Stiles was on the path to insanity and was possibly even sabotaging his own relationship in the course of said insanity, and Stiles couldn’t understand why he was the only one here looking at the situation with a reasonably skeptical eye. Derek used to be suspicious of Peter. What the hell happened? Has Stiles really tamed the mighty beast?

He leaned forward, sliding his forearms onto the table. “Do you really think he might love me? For real?” Stiles asked.

“You’re the one dating him. You should know better than me.”

Stiles grabbed Derek’s wrist. “What do you think? In the past, has he ever—you know.” _Loved someone_ refused to come out of his mouth for some ridiculous reason. Amazing how Peter had done things with Stiles’ asshole that Stiles was sure would make some porn stars blush but this, intimacy, felt like a taboo thing to be discussing.

“Not to my recollection,” Derek said.

So he would have been the first? Stiles would have been the _first person Peter had ever openly loved?_ Why did Stiles suddenly feel like he was shouldering the responsible of something akin to popping Peter’s cherry?

“I mean,” Stiles said, growing a little sweaty. “He’s been in relationships before, right?”

“Stiles,” Derek said, looking at him like he was only going to say this once and not again. “I’ve never seen Peter act with anyone the way he does around you.

“ _Ah._ Oh.” Seriously, this was _worse_ than taking someone’s virginity. “Should I take that with a grain of salt, or?”

“Take that for whatever it’s worth to you,” Derek said, and oh god, now Stiles had to throw himself into the equation. How did he feel about all this. What would it mean for him if Peter really did love him. Was he on the same page as Peter.

Fuck. He never should’ve gone to Derek.

\--

So Stiles takes Isaac's advice. The situation can't exactly get any worse, not when Stiles' brain is already morphing it into a hurricane every second he lets it fester, and maybe Isaac has a point and talking it out will help. Maybe a bit of honesty can do wonders for a relationship.

He kicks off this honesty campaign by breaking into Peter's apartment, trying to work the lock for five minutes with a pencil before he gives in and asks Peter’s neighbors to see if any of them have spares. Three of them don't fall for Stiles' shtick about being from the gas company just looking to do routine check-ups, but one of them has either seen Stiles walk out of Peter's door in various states of undress enough times to trust him or just downright doesn't care what happens in the building, because he hands over Peter's key without much persuasion.

Once he's in, Stiles makes himself comfortable on the couch and browses Peter's TV recordings, waiting for him to come home. The waiting is not the best part of the evening. The waiting gives him time to overthink, to look at an apartment he's been in a million times and see it in a new light, the light of someone who's starting to wonder if he'll be living here soon as a happily married man. Would they trade off dish washing duty? Would they share DVR space? Would they live together for a bit before they get married, or is Peter unexpectedly and hideously old-fashioned and only wants Stiles moving here when and if they're properly wed?

There are so many things here Stiles has already touched, contributed, inspired. Those plates in the kitchen cupboards were Stiles' suggestion when they went to Bed, Bath & Beyond together that one time. There's an old impulse-buy camera on the shelf by the TV that Peter keeps around because Stiles likes to use it. Some of Stiles' hoodies are around just because he's left them here after sleeping over, because he's here all the time anyway.

Finally, after stewing in his own thoughts for a sufficiently terrifying amount of time, the front door jiggles with the telltale sounds of a key unlocking it and Peter steps inside, a brown paper bag brimming with groceries in one arm. He shuts the door with his foot, tilting just enough as he does so for Stiles to see tomatoes and boxes of lasagna noodles in the bag, hinting at what tonight's dinner will be, and Stiles looks at him all domestic-like with bags of food and Stiles’ favorite shampoo propped up in his elbow and wonders if this is what his future looks like.

"Oh. Hello. Did you break in?" Peter asks when he sees Stiles on the couch. He doesn't sound too surprised, like he could smell Stiles on the other side but wasn't certain if it was actually him or just his lingering scent dug into every corner of the apartment.

"Asked your neighbor for a key," Stiles says. He decides not to beat around the bush. "Can we talk about something?"

Peter seems to sense the frayed nerves Stiles is currently consumed by, what with his tapping foot and fidgeting hands and wide eyes, because he takes one look at him and asks, "Too much Adderall?"

"What? No," Stiles says. "I need to ask you about something."

Peter regards him curiously. "All right."

And just like that, with the green light to share given, Stiles' brain completely empties of the delicate, gentle options he put together of how to tell Peter he’s not ready to be engaged, leaving nothing but ringing emptiness. He’s frozen for a moment, all ideas lost, mouth moving wordlessly.

"I really like where we are," Stiles finally says, desperate to find a way to adequately express himself before the seasons start to change and he grows gray. Why didn't he prepare sooner? Why didn't he think about how he wanted this conversation to go? "It's a really good place."

"Uh huh."

"Don't you?"

Peter puts down the cans of tomato sauce and comes closer to the back of the sofa, eyes confused. "Are you here for sex?"

No, he really isn't, which is almost wild, because Stiles is thinking about sex between him and Peter and how mind-blowing it is all the damn time, so much so that his boner practically helicopters him over here without even meaning to on a weekly basis, but right now his priorities are that ring. That damn ring.

Where is he even supposed to begin? What is he supposed to say? How can he somehow start the conversation so that it doesn't immediately make him guilty of thieving around Peter's glove compartment like a petty burglar? Peter’s looking at him with those expectant, impatient eyes, and oh my god, Stiles can’t do this.

Stiles makes a snap decision. "Yes," he says, because sex is good and this can wait.

He gets to his knees on the couch and grabs a handful of Peter's shirt to reel him closer, kissing him over the barrier of the headrest. He makes it the kind of kiss you can't ignore, one that'll sufficiently distract Peter from Stiles' odd behavior, with fierce teeth and clutching hands. Determined aggression is the best way to speak Peter's language during sex, to fire him up and get him excited, so Stiles does everything short of yank him over the back of the couch until they're sprawled on the cushions in one sexy heap. Stiles thinks he'll try that later, but for now he'll focus on ripping Peter's shirt away and tugging it restlessly over his arms.

"My, someone's eager," Peter comments, eyes fond and transitioning into wild and dark as Stiles nods and turns to his neck, pressing short, biting kisses up the curve of the skin and downward toward his chest. He lifts his arms to accommodate Stiles’ wordless requests to take off his shirt. "Rough day?"

"Maybe I just want you," Stiles says.

He bunches up the hem of Peter's t-shirt and pulls on it, Peter humming appreciatively at Stiles' determination. He thinks about doing this forever, which isn't scary, not even a little bit, and Stiles lets himself melt into it, tug Peter's shirt off and dip his tongue into the dip of Peter's collarbone, focusing just on that. The taste of his skin, the way Peter pushes into his touch.

His enthusiasm seems to be infectious, because Peter doesn't need much more revving up before he growls, decisively, and slides his hands to Stiles' ass, squeezing. Stiles sags against him, kissing him again, and again, and again until they're both breathing hard, and lets Peter tug his lower lip into his mouth and bite. He can't imagine doing this with anyone else, that much is for sure, not when Peter's _so good_ at responding to Stiles' body, at giving him exactly what he wants.

Dammit, he doesn't want to think about other people or forever or marriage right now, not when he's trying to distract himself from that particular topic that he just decided to ignore for a little bit longer. He speeds up the pace, unbuttoning Peter's jeans and sliding his hand inside his underwear and squeezing his half-hard cock, which earns him a cut-off gasp from Peter.

"You want me," Peter says, and Stiles nods. "Then how about you get on your knees and suck my cock?"

Stiles is fine with that— _more_ than fine with that, really. He slides his hand back out of Peter's pants and kisses him again, fast and wet and unable to help himself. "Come over here," he says.

Peter obliges. He walks around the back of the couch until Stiles can push him onto it, wriggling Peter’s jeans and underwear down his hips and freeing his dick. He loves that he can do this with Peter, be a little aggressive, be a little rough, not only because Peter's impossible to injure but also because Peter likes it, feeds off of Stiles' dominant side, enjoys watching Stiles take charge. Peter's hand spears into Stiles' hair, pulling him closer until Stiles is in his lap and they're kissing again, sloppier than before.

"Show me what you got," Peter murmurs on Stiles' slick mouth, so Stiles grins and slips off the couch and onto his knees, pulling Peter's knees apart.

Stiles likes blowing Peter, mostly because he's pretty damn good at it, but also because Peter completely disintegrates when Stiles does. He yanks on Stiles' hair and he throws his head back and he groans out endless streams of praise, hips bucking and mouth bitten red, and Stiles nearly gets off on the sight alone. He takes Peter's cock into his hand and licks the tip, circles his tongue around it, tasting Peter. He remembers how it was the first time he sucked Peter, how the taste wasn't what he had expected but still wasn't bad, just a little salty, a little sharp. He's familiar with it by now, and there his mind goes again, sending him reminders of just how much Stiles has learned about Peter, just how long they've been doing this. He shuts his mind up by taking Peter into his mouth again, letting him touch the back of his throat.

He plays with him for a while, alternating between soft licks and fervent sucks and taking him in as deep as he can, encouraged by the needy sounds Peter’s panting out. He grips Peter’s thighs and pours all his energy, all his frustration at not being able to express himself, and all his anxiety at not knowing what to do, into this blowjob, dragging his tongue up Peter’s length and letting his instinct take over. Peter’s arching under his touch, hips pulsing and thighs lifting off the sofa, and Stiles just keeps taking him in deeper, determined to make Peter come with the force of a tornado twisting its way out of his torso. 

"Jesus, Stiles," Peter gasps, his hands pulling at Stiles' hair, fisting against his scalp. "I could watch you do this forever."

That makes Stiles pull away and look up at him, at the heat in Peter's eyes, the teeth digging into his lower lip, the _admiration_ in the way he’s watching Stiles. "You think about forever a lot?"

Peter blinks, clearly not expecting the question. His hand slides over Stiles' hair, loosening his grip. "When you're on your knees sucking me off, it does cross the mind."

"Forever scares me sometimes," Stiles admits, the words tumbling out. "How it just goes on and on—until some huge black hole swallows us all, but you know. It's scary."

"What?"

"But, forever with someone there with you could be kind of neat. Scarier, definitely, but cool."

"Stiles," Peter says, palm gentle on Stiles' head, and for a second Stiles is terrified that this is going to be the moment Peter tells Stiles he wants him there forever, with certificates to seal it and everything, but then he tilts his hips forward so his cock nudges Stiles' cheek and says, "Stop talking."

_Right_. Hell, this is supposed to be a distraction, a diversion to keep his mind from serious conversations about commitment, not the lead-in into said conversation, so Stiles realigns his attention and dives back in to where he was a moment ago: giving Peter the kind of blowjob to crown him the king of all blowjobs. Peter's making all the noises Stiles knew he would, the soft pants, the low grunts, the whispers of his name, and it's turning Stiles on enough for him to unbutton his own pants and touch himself.

"Look at you," Peter murmurs. "Getting hot just from sucking me off." His hips push up, feeding his cock into Stiles' mouth. "You love this, tasting me on your tongue."

Peter’s fingers in Stiles’ hair tightens, a surefire sign that Stiles knows means he’s getting close. Stiles ups his game, humming around Peter’s dick and letting his free hand roam, sliding up the inside of Peter’s thigh, running over his balls, wrapping around the base of his cock while he focuses on the head with his tongue. Peter keeps whispering filth, sounding reverent and awed as he always does when Stiles goes to town on him, and Stiles jerks himself off to it, growing ever harder in his own hand.

“That’s it, Stiles,” Peter says, and he’s growing more breathless. “Almost there.” He touches the side of Stiles’ neck. “In your mouth?”

Stiles nods, pulling off momentarily to grin and press a wet kiss to Peter’s thigh before he lets Peter roll his hips into his mouth, Peter’s thrusts growing harder as he gets closer to the edge. Stiles sucks around him, faster than before, sensing that Peter’s nearly there, just a few more seconds away.

He comes in Stiles' mouth with a low moan, hips rutting off the couch and thighs trembling, the very sight of Peter reaching climax pushing Stiles closer to his own peak. Peter's hand slowly unclenches from the hard grip he has on Stiles' hair, even breathing returning to his body, and when he comes down from his orgasm, he seems to notice that Stiles is tending to himself. He smirks, grabbing Stiles by the shirt and yanking him back onto the couch.

"Come here," he says, guiding Stiles closer and unzipping his pants, pushing them and his boxers down to his ankles. Stiles steps out of them and kicks them aside, pulling his tee over his head too for good measure. "Were you touching yourself?"

"Couldn't help it," Stiles says.

"Your self-control is wretched," Peter admonishes, but he's smiling, eyes hungry. "Getting yourself nice and hard just from sucking my cock." He pats his lap, then tugs Stiles closer until he's straddling his thigh. "Just couldn't wait, could you?"

Peter's thigh moves underneath him, grinding against Stiles' erection, bouncing, sliding. Stiles whines, ducking his head into the crook of Peter's neck and licking, biting, sucking the first bit of skin he can reach, trying to focus on something—anything—that'll keep him from coming too quickly, which is getting harder and harder with Peter’s hands wandering about like that. One slides over his chest, playing with a nipple, while the other runs up and down his leg, almost tickling the skin of his thigh.

“You don’t have to hold back,” Peter says, sinking his teeth into the soft patch of skin under Stiles’ ear. “I love watching you come apart for me.”

Stiles groans, grinding down against Peter, his entire body thrumming with the friction. He wraps his arms around Peter’s shoulders, trying to imagine a life without this, a life without _Peter_ , and not managing to do so.

“Peter— _oh_ —touch me?”

Peter shushes him, pressing a kiss that’s mostly a bite to Stiles’ jaw. “I’ll give you what you need,” he promises, reaching down to take Stiles’ cock into his hand and drawing an urgent whimper out of him. “Perfect. Just like that, Stiles.” Stiles feels Peter’s mouth curve into a grin against his skin. “That good for you?”

“You already know it is,” Stiles chokes out. He has enough sense to pinch the nearest bit of skin of Peter’s he can reach. “You just want to hear me—shit—praise you.”

Peter chuckles, not arguing. His thumb slides over the head of Stiles’ cock, his palm warm and broad on Stiles and pulling that familiar tension into his gut. Stiles noses the hollow of Peter’s throat, breathing in the scent of his skin, and knows he isn’t going to last, not with Peter’s hands working his length like that, exactly how he likes it, slow on the upstroke and then firm, then a little bit harder, oh god—

“Fuck, I’m,” Stiles starts to say, then stops when Peter’s wrist twists just right and his orgasm cuts him off, his head slumping onto Peter’s shoulder. Peter works him through the waves like he always does, mouth whispering into his ear and hand stroking him until Stiles is overwhelmed and shaking, moving his head until he finds Peter’s lips, which immediately meet his and part under his touch.

They kiss for a while, ferocity giving way to a comfortable laziness, the passion drifting into a post-coital relaxation. For those few blissful minutes, Stiles is completely distracted, thinking of nothing but good sex and how nice it is to have Peter's hands running up and down his back, up until he rolls off of him and stretches out on the cool sofa and hears—

"So what are you really here for?" Peter asks after that long, sweaty, comfortable silence. "The good food?"

Stiles freezes. The afterglow slips off of him like he's jumped into a cold pool of reality. "What?"

Peter rolls on his side. "Do you forget sometimes that I can tell when you're lying?"

Oh, fuck. "I'm late for a thing," Stiles says, making another snap decision to do the immature, rash thing. He rolls off the couch, standing up. "I have to go."

"Stiles."

"I'll call you." He grabs the nearest clothes, some of them his and some probably Peter's. "I will." And he gets the hell out of there.

\--

It took two weeks after Peter told Stiles he loved him for Stiles to say it back.

But first, there were some hiccups.

After meeting up with Derek, Stiles still wasn’t convinced that Peter was in love with him. It was too crazy, too out of this world, too barbaric to imagine as a real fact, and the conclusion he ended up coming to after dismissing all scenarios that included murder, insurance fraud, and just being an asshole for kicks, was that Peter actually meant to do well.

It was all too probable that he thought that Stiles needed to hear Peter say he loved him, that he was impatient for that tender, caring side of Peter to peek out, and that he would be bored of their relationship soon unless there was sign of progress. They’d been going out for a long time—most couples would’ve admitted they loved each other months ago—and maybe Peter thought that it was just time to throw love into the mix, even if he was lying. For Stiles’ sake.

It was almost sweet, and it would be sweeter if trying to riddle it out hadn’t been running Stiles up a wall the last few days.

Stiles decided to relieve Peter of the obligation at dinner that night. He picked that Italian place down the street that he knew Peter liked, a little thank you for giving Stiles what he thought he needed, and addressed the elephant in the room when their dinner plates started emptying up.

"Listen, you said something to me the other night on the phone," Stiles said, putting down his utensils, "and I thought I have to say something too."

Peter seemed to straighten up at that. "I'm listening."

Stiles fiddled with the edge of his fork, brushing his thumb over the cool handle and idly realizing that this linguini wasn’t nearly as good as Peter’s, who could whip up a pasta dish that could make Stiles hear the voice of god. He tried to focus, taking a deep breath, and only had a second to wonder if he was doing the right thing before he charged ahead.

"I just wanted to tell you, well. Maybe you should take it back."

"...excuse me?"

"I want you to take it back," Stiles said. Around them, the restaurant chattered, loud like bees. "I don't—I just don't think you mean it."

"What?"

"I won't get upset."

"Let me get this straight. You're trying to tell me what it is I’m feeling," Peter said slowly. He looked at Stiles with extremely furrowed brows, like he was waiting for Stiles to shut his mouth. "You're trying to tell me off for saying I love you."

"I won't be angry if you take it back," Stiles said. "Just—do it now. It's not funny." He looked up and saw Peter’s angry eyes, a fire there that he wasn’t expecting. “I know you were trying to be nice, and I get that, I do. But you don’t have to say something you don’t mean just because you think I need to hear it.”

"You're not even lying," Peter says, sounding awed. "You really don't believe me."

"I don't."

"Why not?"

Stiles’ hands were getting sweaty. He didn’t think Peter would respond like this, would get this upset—as a matter of fact, he was so sure that Peter would be grateful that the farce was finally over. "Uh, because you're not—love is not your thing. You don't love things, you find their weaknesses and sink your teeth into them, you—you see what someone can do for you and that's that."

"That's what you think of me?" Peter asked. "That's what you think I feel about you?"

"Yeah," Stiles told him. His stomach was churning, the linguini no longer agreeing with him. He wasn't trying to make Peter feel bad about himself, he wasn't even trying to poke a reaction out of him, he just didn't want Peter to throw out something as important as telling someone you love them if he didn't really mean it, or even fully understand what it encompassed.

"Well," Peter said. He looked like he wanted to say more, to hurt Stiles like Stiles considered him so obviously capable of doing, but didn't want to prove him and his accusations right. "This has been most illuminating. What I’m getting here is that you think I would tell you that I’m in love with you just because it tickles me.”

“It’s not like you haven’t done worse things.”

Peter’s mouth opened for one surprised moment, then closed again. “So this is right on par with my track record, is that it?”

“That’s not what I’m—listen.” Stiles took a breath. “I get that you were coming from a good place. But you don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t _have to love you?_ ”

“You don’t have to tell me you do. You don’t have to lie about it.”

Peter was still staring at him with those furious eyes, and some of it was starting to rub off on Stiles. This wasn’t all about Peter; this was about Stiles too. It wasn’t funny to joke about these kinds of things, to play with Stiles’ feelings like they were toys. He just wanted some honesty, some realness.

“Stiles, you are the most—” Peter stopped himself. “It would be so much easier if I _didn’t_ love you.” And then he started getting ready to leave, throwing a few bills on the table and getting to his feet, leaving Stiles to feel like he had just made a horrible mistake.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Somewhere I can think.” Peter wasn’t looking at Stiles anymore, like even catching a glimpse would be too much. “Not here.”

He walked off before Stiles could say anything else—even think of the right words to say—and Stiles was left to wonder if everyone else had been right all along and if he really could be that unthinkingly, stupidly wrong about someone.

\--

"I didn't tell him," Stiles admits to Isaac a few hours later after he’s calmed down and tracked him down in the coffee shop down the street. He's feeling a little morose and a little cowardly and a little like a six year old who can't pluck up the courage to tell his parents his ant farm broke open. Considering he just had amazing sex only a few hours ago, he really shouldn't be this miserable.

Next to him, Isaac is not sympathetic. "Why the hell not?"

"I tried," Stiles means, throwing his head down on the table. Somebody's left behind a bit of a coffee stain that's now smearing onto his forehead, which feels like something he deserves after the chicken-hearted afternoon he's had. "I wanted to just get it out, but I couldn't. How do you tell someone who's about to propose that you're not ready for marriage? How do you even start?"

"How about: I know you're about to propose but I'm not ready for marriage." Isaac shrugs. He fixes Stiles with a pointed look. "Stop being afraid of hurting his feelings. It'll hurt more later if you don't take care of it now."

It feels strange getting harangued by Isaac, probably because Isaac has never been in a position to comfortably do so, let alone give advice. It’s most likely why he went to Isaac in the first place even though he knew that he wouldn’t have anything to offer but cold hard truths, because Stiles needs to hear that there’s only one good solution here. Stiles picks his head up from the table and grabs a napkin to wipe his forehead clean.

"I know you're right. Bizarrely, but you are." Stiles pinches his nose. "I just never expected something like this. I never thought he'd be in that place and I wouldn't be even close."

"I wouldn't say you're not even close," Isaac says. "Not even close is halfway across the country. Not dating Peter at all. Refusing to affiliate yourself with him, like most of us with intact common sense."

" _Hey_."

"What I'm saying is that you're not that far apart from each other when it comes to what you want. There're just some communication issues."

"He wants to _marry me_."

"And what, you never want that?" Isaac gives him a hard look that Stiles unintentionally crumbles under a little. "If you don't, that something you should _communicate with him_."

"I do want that, eventually," Stiles says. He's getting a splitting headache, mostly because the reasonable logic Isaac is throwing at him ends with him having to go back to Peter and relive this afternoon, although with a much less sexy ending. "I always thought I'd get married at one point. When I'm ready for what marriage means. What it _really_ means, not just what I thought it was when I was a kid." He sighs, fidgeting with the edge of the sugar bowl on the table. "Look. My parents were so happy together. My dad knew she might one day lose her mind and didn't care. That kind of love—the type where you have to be with someone, no matter what. Anything less just isn't enough for marriage."

He looks at the table, at the smooth, burnished wood. He keeps thinking about if he knew that Peter would die in under a decade—wound to the gut, savagely murdered in his sleep, killed by a horde of bears, who knows—would he still want to risk being with him, knowing it would hurt all the more when he would lose him? 

"Why are you wearing that awful shirt?"

Stiles' head snaps up to see Isaac frowning at him. He looks down at his top, suddenly realizing that it isn't his own. That deep vee could only belong to one person Stiles knows.

"It's not mine," he says, picking at it like it'll stop looking like his second skin. "I grabbed Peter's this afternoon on accident after we—well. You know."

"God," Isaac says, getting to his feet and scooping all his things up, like he needs to leave now before Stiles starts divulging details. "Stop talking to me and go talk to Peter."

Stiles watches Isaac hustle out the door. He knows that Isaac is right, _again_. He hates when Isaac is the one making sense and Stiles is the one being irrational. He can't let this sit. He can't let Peter plan and plot—and something that isn't nefarious for once, at that—the perfect proposal only for Stiles to ruin it all, and maybe end up ruining them in the process. Stiles wants Peter in his life, desperately doesn't want to lose him, so he has to say something now. Not later, in the aftermaths.

\--

After their fight about Peter's capability to love, or lack thereof, Scott and Isaac took Stiles out to karaoke night downtown to get his mind off of the fact that Stiles somehow managed to go from being told he was loved to single-handedly ruining his own relationship all in the short timespan of just a couple days. The distraction worked well enough thanks to the multiple rounds of drinks Stiles had requested, which not only made his stupidity hurt less, but also made standing up on stage and singing Olivia Newton John hits seem like an excellent idea.

Turns out, there really weren't that many Olivia Newton John hits out there to sing his troubles through. Somewhere between Make a Move on Me and Have You Ever Been Mellow, the buzz started wearing off and was replaced by a deep, drunken sadness that he seemed to be completely aswim in, and even watching Isaac belt out Queen songs with no sense of pitch or tune whatsoever was cheering him up.

“I messed up,” Stiles said into his cosmopolitan glass as one a.m. hit. “I think he really does love me. And what do I do? I try to stomp it out of him.” He hung his head. “What’s wrong with me?”

“That’s really another can of worms,” Isaac said.

“I think we _broke up_ ,” Stiles lamented. “I always thought he’d be the one to fuck this up, but apparently I had forgotten about my big mouth.” He closed said big mouth by bringing his glass back up to his lips, gulping back the rest. He needed something stronger. “I need more drinks.”

“I think that isn’t such a good idea,” Scott said.

“Yeah, can you even do your multiplication tables anymore?” Isaac asked.

Stiles couldn’t, which he really didn’t want to divulge out loud. He set his empty glass down on the table. “I’m going outside,” he said. “I want some air.”

What he really wanted was to mope in peace since his friends weren’t being any help, most probably because they couldn’t think of anything helpful to say to someone whose problems were so irrefutably their own fault. Who the hell freaked out because their boyfriend told them they love them? Who immediately assumed they were being dishonest and gossiped about it with all their friends? Who the hell betrayed Stiles in a past life so badly that it was messing up his current one? Was he beheaded by a jilted lover once upon a time?

He got up and stumbled his way over to the exit, the old woman trying to belt out Disney ballads on the stage who was adorable half an hour ago starting to get on his nerves. It was cold outside, the chill making him feel all the lonelier. He suddenly didn't know why he didn't ask someone to come out here with him, anything to keep from crying by himself on the sidewalk of a karaoke bar after midnight. He felt ridiculous and miserable and foolish all at once, and he headed to the curb to sit down and hang his head between his legs, where the world wasn't staring at him so much. He tried to count nicks in the asphalt from between his knees, but the alcohol was making things fuzzy, playing with his eyesight, and the longer he stared at the gray, pebbled road beneath him, the sleepier and sadder he got.

He didn't know how much time passed, if he fell asleep there for a few moments or just really concentrated hard on the pavement, but then someone's footsteps were coming close and stopping in front of him. The tips of very shiny leather shoes caught Stiles' eye, and he lifted his head from the street, neck heavier than before.

"I should've known," Peter said through a deep sigh that came out of his nostrils. He was standing there in front of Stiles with his arms crossed like he was in a position to pass judgement. "You're drunk off your ass."

Stiles wanted to argue that he wasn't off his ass, he was sitting on it, and _besides_ , he wasn't drunk, he was just glum and tipsy and his brain was gently pickled in vodka, but then Peter thrust a water bottle in his face and Stiles suddenly realized just how thirsty he was. He took it, gulping down half of the bottle just to appease his parched mouth.

"Are you singing your troubles away?" Peter asked, eyes on the karaoke sign overhead. 

"Something like that," Stiles said, wiping his mouth dry with the back of his hand. Looking at Peter was sobering him up, but not nearly as much as he would've liked. "I was sad."

"Were you?"

Stiles got to his feet, certain that he should be standing for this if he was about to deliver a grand apology, or at least an explanation. The world rocked beneath his feet, but he didn't fall, focusing on staying upright.

"I don't want to break up," Stiles said, the happy adrenaline of the drinks wearing off and leaving nothing but a hazy sadness to drown in. He grabbed Peter's shirt with desperate fists. "I want to be together."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Peter asked, grabbing Stiles' wrists to pry his fingers off his neatly ironed clothing. "We're not broken up."

"We're not?"

"It's the first I've heard of it," Peter said, then looked Stiles up and down, took in his deplorable, drunken state, and went to steady him by grabbing hold of his forearm. "Let's get you home."

He sounded so grim, so _stiff_ , like he was Stiles' minder and little else, and Stiles felt the rigidity in Peter’s manner settle in his stomach like ice. He had screwed up, really screwed up, and karaoke was a poor bandage for this complete mess he had created. He should’ve spared himself the awkward drive home where Peter calmly explained that Stiles was too immature and too flaky for him and that this was fun but it couldn't last forever. Even getting an Uber and letting a stranger drive him home was a better option that this.

It occurred to him then that he was unclear on why Peter was even here, if he was just passing by and happened to stumble on a familiar drunken face or if he was looking for Stiles, if he wanted to find him. Stiles frowned.

"How did you find me?" 

"You asked me to come get you," Peter said. "After repeatedly sending me depressing lyrics."

"I didn't," Stiles said, certain of that much, which prompted Peter to pull his phone out and present Stiles with the evidence.

Stiles @ 9:52pm: _I know this crush ain't going away way way ayayay_

Stiles @ 10:38pm: _I want you back yes I do now I want you back trying to live without your love is one long sleepless night_

Stiles @ 11:13pm: _Hopelessly devoted to youuuuuu_

Stiles @ 12:49am: _I'm at the karaoke bar on fifth st can you come get me so we can talk_

"You came," Stiles said, not remembering asking but still feeling touched anyway. He clutched onto Peter's phone, the texts blurry under his drunken gaze. Just as he was about to pass the phone back, he realized that his name in Peter's phone had a little rose emoji attached to it. It felt so romantic and Shakespearean and like Peter's idea of what a sophisticated, worldly relationship looked like, and Stiles felt a pull on his heartstrings like someone strumming a guitar with clumsy fingers. "I don't want you to take it back. I _didn't_ want you to take it back."

He leaned forward to tilt his forehead against Peter's chest, breathe him in, feel a little sorry for himself, and one of Peter's hands came up to touch his shoulder, albeit a bit tautly.

"You're mad," Stiles mumbled, because even with his senses impaired thanks to a night's worth of drinking, it was obvious.

"I'd just rather be having this conversation when you're sober," Peter said stiffly. "Not when you've just sent me David Archuleta lyrics to try and articulate yourself."

Stiles picked his head back off his chest. He arched forward to try and kiss him, let his mouth say the apology for him, that he was young and stupid and scared and said all sorts of things he shouldn't have, but his aim was off, and he ended up with his lips on the side of Peter's jaw. His stubble was awfully rough.

"I've never noticed that emoji before," Stiles said, the thoughts coming to him from all sides.

"What?"

"By my name. In your phone," he said. "Do you know what you are in mine?"

Peter paused. "My lovable sausage treasure."

"How did you know?"

"I've seen it."

It felt like they had veered off topic. Stiles didn't remember texting Peter, but he knew why a smarter, slightly less drunk version of himself did: to make things right, which Stiles still hadn't done. He needed to make things clear, to let Peter know that even though he didn't know that saying it out loud would be so hard for him, that grappling with his feelings would be so hard, he wanted to tell Peter anyway. 

"Hey, Peter," Stiles said, hanging onto his elbow and tugging like he's ringing a bell. "I have to tell you something."

"What?"

"I have to tell you something," Stiles repeated. He was slurring a bit. "I. I want you to know that I—"

"Don't. I don't want to hear it when you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk," Stiles persisted. He had to say this, he wanted to say this, he _needed_ to say this, especially after being such an asshole about it. "I barely drank. I'm just a little tipsy, just let me say it—"

"No."

"I'm going to say it!" Stiles declared. He straightened up and stared into Peter's hard eyes. "I'm in l—"

Then his water bottle was dumped on his face and the words were lost in the splash, water smacking into his nose and cutting him off. Stiles was going to fucking kill Peter.

"Don't say it," Peter said, his voice a grumbled warning as he capped the now empty bottle. "You're going to complain to me tomorrow if you do."

"I can't believe you just," Stiles said, trailing off to wipe the water out of his eyes.

"Come on."

Peter's arm wound underneath Stiles', hoisting him up and walking him down the street. It was undignified at best, his feet hardly walking as Peter dragged him along to his car at a fast, aggravated pace. Goddammit, maybe Peter wouldn't be so aggravated if he just let Stiles' talk and he let himself listen. He loved him, dammit, and he wanted to say it out loud and watch Peter's face lighten up and tell him that he was fully down Peter's rabbit hole as far as he was concerned. And he wanted to hear him say it back too.

The impromptu bath left him slightly more sober, but still in that unpleasantly sad fog that came with drinking to forget and ignore problems, his eyes starting to hurt and his mind reminding him of all the terrible reasons he started drinking tonight to begin with. He held on Peter's arm, enjoying the sturdiness of it, how it held him afloat.

"Scott and Isaac," he mumbled, remembering that they were still in the karaoke bar. "They're going to worry about me."

"I'll let them know you're in good hands," Peter promised.

"I am," Stiles said, and he felt sure of that, heart-achingly so. He could hear the faint beep of Peter unlocking the car and slumped his head on Peter's shoulder, breathing in the scent while Peter opened the door to the passenger seat. "I'm telling you tomorrow," he said. "I am."

Peter sighed, his movements of strapping Stiles into his seat stilling. His hand brushed over Stiles’ shoulder, and the touch felt almost parental, like a teacher giving him a talking-to. “It isn’t a handshake, Stiles,” he said. He sounded sad, so sad, like he had already resigned himself to the idea of Stiles not being mature enough, old enough, _interested_ enough to love him back. “You don’t have to do it back just because someone reaches out to you.”

“It’s not like that,” Stiles told him. “I just had no idea—there’s no way that you could.” The world was swaying; was the car already moving? He blinked, trying to see if the street was whizzing by, but it didn’t seem to be, and Peter wasn’t even behind the wheel yet, he was still standing next to Stiles, settling him into his seat. “It just doesn’t make sense that you love me.”

Peter shot him a look. “Because I’m so cold and heartless and incapable of love, yes?”

“Don’t,” Stiles said. He reached to cover Peter’s hand where it was buckling him up, squeezing it. “It’s about me too, okay?” He closed his eyes, sick of watching the world swing back and forth. “I’m not—stuff like this doesn’t happen to me.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“Me!” Stiles said. He felt like he was about to cry, like if he kept talking, the waterworks would start and he would be a kid again, some little boy who couldn’t handle his own emotions. He gripped Peter’s hand harder. “I’ve never had luck with this kind of thing. People never even used to look at me and now you— _you_ —you love me?”

“Stiles,” Peter said. He wiggled his hand out from beneath Stiles’ vice grip and grabbed his chin, pivoting his face closer. “Look at me.” Stiles reluctantly did so. Peter’s eyes were so close, and so, so blue. “Can you please have this pity party at home?”

Stiles blinked, waiting for something more, and when he realized nothing else was coming, he chuckled. This was Peter, all hard truths and wake-up-calls and no-nonsense, and Stiles was lucky enough to see the sweeter bits too, to hear him voice his affection. Why hadn’t he appreciated it at the time? Why had he tried so hard to dissect the words? “Thanks for the pep talk, baby.”

Peter tapped his chin to keep his attention. “Do you need me to say it again?”

_Please_ , Stiles thought. “If you feel like it,” he said.

“I love you,” Peter said. It sounded so easy leaving his mouth, just like it did over the phone, no hesitation, no trepidation around the vowels. Like he was sure. “Even if you give me a hard time about it, you insufferable little brat.”

He closed Stiles’ door after that, rounding the car to slide into the driver’s seat and start the engine. It purred to life, warm air blowing out the vents like Peter knew that Stiles would be cold when he found him, and Stiles kept thinking, over and over, that he was wrong, so wrong, and he had never been this wrong about someone before, and maybe Peter really did love him, as crazy it seemed. 

\--

Stiles leaves the coffee shop after calming his nerves with overpriced tea and running Isaac’s words through his head over and over as motivation to do the right thing. It gets to the point where it starts being ironic, that being in a relationship with Peter has somehow pushed him into doing the responsible, honorable thing in a situation where he could easily do the gutless, self-serving thing. Why is everything about his relationship with Peter completely upside down from what he expected? Maybe he should just stop assuming things about them, stop waiting for things to look like what he thinks they ought to, a and start rolling with the punches.

By the time evening hits, Peter’s texted him four times, each message ascending in barely concealed annoyance. The first one says _what the hell is wrong with you_ and the second says _why did you make off with my favorite shirt like that_ and the third says _are you dying somewhere? where even are you?_ and the last says _you left your favorite hoodie behind when you ran out on your naked boyfriend. it would be a shame if something were to happen to it._

Stiles ignores them all because he knows that, even though he worries for the safety of his hoodie, he doesn’t want to explain himself and have this conversation over the phone. He doesn’t want to spend all night tapping out a novel-length text about the thrilling tale of finding the ring and sinking into hysterics about it and wanting to talk it out together, so he just writes back a short _can I come over tomorrow?_ and waits for Peter’s reply.

He goes home and looks around his bedroom, how just like Peter’s place, it’s riddled with Peter’s things. The bathroom has Peter’s aftershave in the medicine cabinet. His desk has books on it that Peter recommended he read. His computer’s iTunes library is half made up of songs Peter demanded he download. They’re completely entwined in each other’s lives, and Stiles is fine with that, always has been, so would it really be as bad as his brain is making it seem if they were together forever?

Peter texts back just as Stiles settles in for bed. His message says _fine, but good luck finding your hoodie._

\--

One hazy car ride away from the karaoke bar, a humiliatingly uncoordinated walk up the stairs to Peter’s apartment, and ten minutes spent being undressed and tucked into Peter’s bed later, he woke up swaddled in Peter's sheets well past noon of the next day. _Truly_ swaddled, wrapped up like a toddler that would accidentally hurt himself if he wasn't rolled into a burrito. His mouth tasted like a rat had died under his tongue last night and every single light around him seemed to burn into his skull like a laser. He groaned, remembering the bar, the Let’s Get Physical lyrics on the monitor in front of him on the karaoke stage, the embarrassing conversation he had with Peter on the curb.

Well. He supposed it could be worse. He could be passed out on Scott’s couch with a bottle of gin cradled in his arm, hungover and still under the impression that he was single. He was pretty sure he wasn’t anymore, and now all that was left were the bits where he talked to Peter and admitted that he probably shouldn’t trust his cop instinct all that much yet and that he had been a class A doofus over the last few days.

He groaned again.

"Fuuuuuck."

"That's what you get for drinking," Peter's voice drifted over from the doorway.

Stiles peeled open his eyes, trying to concentrate through the hazy blur on Peter's familiar figure. He found it eventually, rubbing at his eyes ferociously enough to dislodge a few eyelashes until the world came into focus.

"You've killed people," he said. "You don't get to lecture me about drinking."

Peter tutted. "You see, I was going to give you a cup of fresh steaming coffee, but with an attitude like that, I don't think I want to."

"Fuck you," Stiles told him.

He ached everywhere. He stretched his arms over his head and pushed his feet out to the edge of the bed, feeling remarkably more like a punching bag than a person. Rubbery and sore.

Peter stayed in the doorway the whole time, watching. Just looking at him had Stiles remembering the night before, all the emotions, all the yelling, all the water thrown on his face. Suddenly he was aching somewhere other than his muscles, somewhere distinctly heart-like, and felt like someone out of a Hozier song.

He sat up on Peter's bed. He had lost count of all the times he'd slept here. Crashed here. Been thoroughly fucked here. Stiles touched the sheets, the ones he bugged Peter about buying because the old ones felt too scratchy for him. Peter hadn't even required much convincing.

It was crazy. It was like one day, Stiles woke up, and Peter became a sane, rational, even occasionally _compassionate_ person, and not the self-absorbed monster everybody loved to hate. He bought Stiles sheets. He brought him coffee in the morning. He told him he loved him.

"Just so you know, I'm sober," Stiles said. "Hungover, but sober. Clear-headed." He gave Peter a pointed look. "I want to get everything out in the open."

Peter stood perfectly still in the doorway. "All right."

Stiles breathed in, wishing he was holding onto Peter right now. A forearm, a shoulder, a knee. Peter was so far away, just watching, waiting for Stiles to talk, his eyebrows an impatient, slanted line.

"I love the hell out of you," Stiles said. Holy shit, maybe even literally. Maybe Stiles' love really made him a better person. Maybe Stiles was the first to ever try and see what was behind all those hellish parts of his personality and find a way to whittle them down. "I do. I love you and I never even knew you wanted to hear me say it."

Peter was still just looking, just watching, just standing, unmoving, in the doorway. Stiles felt nervous and nauseous and terrified, taking the effects of his hangover and amplifying them.

"I think I make you a better person and I even think you make me a better person, 'cause you're making me admit this," Stiles said. "I've been in love with you for a while for—shit. For so many reasons."

Peter was still staring at him. He had the poker face of a monk playing cards when he wanted, and Stiles was going to throw up looking at it, waiting.

“Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?” Stiles asked, wishing he had a barf bag.

And finally, Peter relented, stepping into the room and approaching the foot of the bed.

"Of course I wanted to hear you say it." He stepped even closer, sliding his hand over Stiles' cheek. "I said it, didn't I?" He propped up Stiles' chin a bit with his thumb. "What are the reasons?"

"What?"

"That you're in love with me."

Stiles colored, moving his chin away from Peter's hand. "You really need to hear this?"

"I do."

He should've known this was coming. "Fine," he sighed. "You make me crazy. And you make me laugh, and you keep me on my toes. You’re so different from what everyone thinks you are.” He scratched his head, realizing there were dozens more reasons than he could even list. And he probably shouldn’t, for the sake of Peter’s arrogance if nothing else. “You challenge me, and you don't let me slack off. And you're not exactly bad in bed."

Peter smirked. The way he was looking at Stiles—awed, fond, _surprised_. Stiles wanted to remember that look forever. "That last one," he said. "Is that the most important?"

"You better believe it."

"Anything else you want to add to the list?"

"I'm sure you'd love that," Stiles said. "But can we maybe put your ego on the backburner and focus on that electric drill in my head first?"

"Fine," Peter said, then kissed Stiles' forehead. "But later," he murmured on his temple, "we're going back to that list."

“I’m sure we are,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling, and let Peter drag him out of the bed and to the kitchen.

\--

Stiles comes back to Peter's apartment the next day, as promised, with the mental note to actually go through with his plan this time around chanting through his brain like a mantra. He knocks and knocks for a while with no answer, which Stiles is tempted to take as an omen that he should chicken out, but then he remembers that ring in the glove box, how he can't put this off any longer than he already has. Someone in this world loves him and cares for him and does all that enough that they want to spend the rest of their life with him, and the least he owes that someone is the honesty of telling them he's just not ready yet.

So he keeps knocking up until he realizes that the door is unlocked, at which point he invites himself in and tries to search for Peter. The kitchen is empty and the living room is empty.

"Hello? Peter?" He takes his jacket off and sets it on the couch, wondering if Peter's hiding on purpose to make it harder on Stiles. "I come bearing answers, and, well." He should've stopped at that bagel shop on his way up here. Peter loves a good bagel. "Hello?"

Peter doesn't answer, but the faint sound of music drifting through the walls draws Stiles over to Peter's bedroom. The door is ajar once he gets there.

Peter's sitting inside with a book in hand that he seems to be totally invested in and boxes around him like he's been digging things out of the depths of his closets lately, and Stiles gently knocks on the doorframe even though he knows Peter must've smelled him and heard him approach by now. The fact that he isn't acknowledging Stiles can't be a good thing. Either that book is _damn_ interesting or Peter's feeling a little snubbed over Stiles' sudden exit and proceeding silence from yesterday. 

He walks in the room anyway. There's a song playing, something so old it crackles a little, and Stiles feels like he's stepped in another dimension when he hears it.

"Woah. This is from the thirties, isn't it?" Stiles asks, pointing to the cassette player it’s crooning out of. He nearly does a double take at that, because holy shit, _cassettes?_ "How prehistoric are you, old man?"

"It's Bing Crosby," Peter says idly, eyes still drawn to the book in his hands. "It's a great song." He turns a page. "He's singing about not being able to properly tell someone how he feels about them. You should be able to relate."

Stiles feels that one like a slap upside the head. "Ouch."

Peter closes the book, and as the pages flip together, Stiles realizes it’s an old album. "You better be here to tell me why you ran out the other day."

He is, he is, dammit, this time, he is.

"I am." Stiles takes a deep breath, trying to reassure himself that he'll still have a boyfriend by the end of this conversation. He steps inside and takes a seat at the edge of Peter’s bed. "I know what you're planning."

Unfortunately, Peter doesn't immediately understand, which means Stiles is going to have to get more emphatic. Peter raises his eyebrows, slowly asking, "What I'm planning?"

"Yeah. With me. Me and you." Stiles runs his hands through his hair, feeling terrible. "It's really... nice. But I'm just not there."

"Not where?"

" _There_. Where you are."

Peter crosses his arms. "Where am I, exactly?"

Stiles sighs, realizing Peter's not going to let Stiles get away with being vague about this. This is like pulling teeth. Without anesthesia. And then doing a few root canals for the hell of it. "Ahead of me. By at least a few miles, because you're ready for marriage and weddings and sharing a life."

The light of recognition is not going off in Peter's face. His arms stay firmly crossed, and after a few moments of digesting what Stiles is telling him, he says, "Where exactly is this coming from?"

From the glove department, from the gorgeous silver ring inside it, from the anxiety Stiles has been building up inside himself because of it. He sighs again.

"I found the ring."

"Pardon?"

Stiles points at thin air, at where the ring is practically dancing in front of his mind's eye, glittering and shining and distracting him.

"I found the engagement ring in your glove compartment, okay?” Stiles says. “I've been freaking out because I know about it and I'm scared about what it means."

Peter looks at him with extremely critical eyes. "What it means?"

"If you're going to ask me to marry you. If that's something you've been thinking about, because if it is, I'd really like you to tell me instead of springing it on me randomly. I'm not a fan of surprises. I just—I don't want to end up in some expensive restaurant some day with a ring sitting inside my baked potato waiting for me to accidentally choke on it. I need to know."

He doesn't want to deal with the impending threat of needing to be Heimliched in the near future, and he certainly doesn't want to carry the weight of knowing someone wants to love him and only him forever as some ghastly secret. He needs to get this out and talk about this and see where he stands, see how all this would really work. He's starting to heat up under Peter's silent stare, aimed straight at him like a laser. He's ruined it, hasn't he. The great baked potato proposal Peter had prepared. 

Then, very slowly, Peter takes a seat next to him on the bed. Stiles watches him.

"The ring," Peter says, "was my brother-in-law's."

"...what?"

"It was the wedding band of my sister's husband. I found it in a storage unit I cleaned out a few weekends ago that had all the things that survived the fire in it."

Stiles feels all images of baked potatoes fall from his mind like a shattering puzzle. Either this is unbelievably relieving or soul-crushingly embarrassing, and Stiles hasn't figured it out quite yet. He looks around, and suddenly all of the boxes and albums and old cassette players make sense, and they look completely different when Stiles sees them as old family memorabilia instead of weird detritus Peter had stored in an old closet somewhere. It’s like he always forgets that Peter has a past, and had a family, and once had a fully detailed life that didn’t have Stiles in it, which for whatever reason, makes Stiles feel unexplainably foolish for never even having asked about it, which might have even prevented this whole disaster in the first place. He holds onto his knees, trying to find the appropriate reply.

"It was someone else's ring," he finally says, deciding that recapping is the only way to go.

"Yes."

"You found it one day at random."

"Yes."

"It had nothing to do with me and you never intended to give it to me."

"Yes," Peter says, and okay, that last one hurts a bit. Peter leans in. "Although your reaction to the idea of you thinking I did is very telling."

Stiles wonders immediately if he's offended. Stiles probably would be in his position. If Peter had been the one to come to him in a frenzy to let him know just how shocked and repulsed he was by the idea of marrying Stiles, yeah, Stiles would take that a little personally.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says. He feels extraordinarily stupid and also a little conceited, because who finds a ring and immediately assumes it has their name on it? "I know none of this is exactly a compliment. I just—I don't know. I guess I never really thought... I don't know."

"About marriage?" Peter says. "You were the one waxing on about aliens dancing the macarena and chocolate cake not that long ago."

"Aliens _watching_ the macarena," Stiles clarifies. "And it's not that I never thought about the future and where I'd be. Yeah, I always thought I'd get married, I just never..."

Peter twitches. "You never thought about it with me."

Stiles hates that that’s true, hates that he has to tell Peter as much. Peter’s looking at him with a hard face, caught somewhere between disappointed and upset and even a little crushed. 

"Honestly, I never thought you and I would even... get this far. I always thought that in the future, we'd... have broken up." Stiles buries his face in his hands, not quite sure he's not doing this right. "Not that I want to be broken up. I just haven't thought about us having a future. Something about it just seems—I just never thought it was an option."

Maybe it's because of how they started, full of promises to not fall in love, how for months they were strictly on the no-strings-attached side of their relationship. Maybe it's because certain parts of their lives and personalities are so different, and a part of Stiles has always been waiting for those parts to catch up to them and for Peter to get bored of Stiles or Stiles to get frustrated by Peter. Or maybe it's because most people's idea of a future with someone includes a nicely-painted house and Thanksgiving dinner with in-laws and raising kids together, and Peter has never seemed like the type to be involved in any of the above. Hell, Peter hardly even seems like the type to want to be in a committed relationship, even though he is.

"I know I'm doing this all wrong," Stiles says into his hands. "I'm not trying to be mean." He lifts his head back up. "Do you see that future with me?"

"I don't think much about the future." Then Peter's hand touches his knee, which feels like a good sign. "I'm usually too entertained by the present to bother. But when I do, I see you in it."

A funny feeling that might just be a tidal wave of love sweeps its way up Stiles' throat. Sometimes he feels like he's underestimating Peter, blindly writing him off as incapable of feelings or real connections, but it's clear that he does care, at least about things that matter. Like Stiles. Like the fact that he wants Stiles around for a while.

The beginnings of a smile pull on Stiles' mouth, some of the fear that the afternoon will end terribly ebbing off. "So you're not planning on brutally murdering me in the near future then?"

"No," Peter says, giving Stiles a deadpan stare that clearly says to stop asking so often. "The important question is if _you_ want me in your future, even if you can't imagine it."

"I mean, _yeah_. To be honest, I can't even imagine life without you anymore." Stiles thinks about the gourmet meals and the fantastic blowjobs and the being loved by someone who loves so little but chooses to love him a lot, and even thinking about giving it all up because it doesn't fit into a mold of what his grown-up world looked like to his seven year old self seems monumentally dumb. The future isn't an over-saturated world with a white picket fence and a mowed lawn and a beautiful wife making cookies in the kitchen. The future is a real thing full of real people that are never who you think they're going to be.

Stiles lets that breath he was inadvertently holding in out, arching across the bed to pull Peter into a hug. His life hasn’t ever been normal, and he's never even wanted normal, so maybe it's time he start embracing not being so. He pillows his cheek on Peter's shoulder, breathing in that familiar scent of his laundry detergent. He notices that the song’s changed, another old tune that was most likely popular at the beginning of the twentieth century playing. He loves that Peter likes this stuff, that he didn’t know that Peter did, that there’s still more for Stiles to learn about him.

"I want you there. I just—I keep having this image in my head where someone bitter and full of revenge kills you and I'm one of those widows whose husbands died in a war."

"What exactly happens in your mind?"

Stiles pulls back from Peter’s shoulder to grab his wrists, squeezing right at the pulse points. "I'm serious. Do you even know how many people you've pissed off in this world? How many people could be coming for you?"

"I'm fairly good at defending myself, you know."

"Yeah, but what happens if someone sneaks up from behind you and you don't notice?" Stiles asks. "Let's be real for a second. A lot of people out there probably have it out for you, and not all of them are going to be clueless on how to kill you."

"Not much I can do to change that," Peter says evenly. "You don't know what the future will bring. Neither do I. Maybe something will happen to me."

"Don't say that," Stiles says, not when he can hardly bear to even hear his own mind say it, but Peter continues anyway.

"Maybe something will happen to _you_ ," Peter points out. "The risk is always there. It's not a reason to let someone go."

Stiles almost wants to laugh. He can't believe that any of this is really happening, that he's being lectured about what loving someone really means by Peter Hale of all people. He drops his face into his hands again, rubbing them over his cheeks. The cassette player switches tracks, Al Bowlly starting to croon out of the speakers about living in a daydream, being happy as a king.

"How are you such a romantic?" he asks. "I always thought—"

"That I was too burned and broken for love? Is that it?"

"Well." Stiles raises his head. "Yeah, sort of."

"It took me a while to experience it for myself," Peter says. "But I always knew it was out there. I never underestimated its power on others." He pauses for a moment. "But then, well. There's you."

Stiles finds himself smiling without meaning to. “So what you’re saying is I’m special.”

“That’s certainly true,” Peter says, and with just enough condescension for Stiles to sock him in the arm.

“I’m serious. I made you believe in love. I make you want to propose, admit it.”

“I thought you weren’t ready for me to propose.”

“Maybe not, but I have to admit, I’m… kind of touched if that’s something you’ve considered. With me. Eventually.” He shrugs. “It’s not like I’m against it ever happening. I guess the idea of marriage just freaked me out because I didn't even know it was on the table.”

Peter slides a hand over his knee. "We can take it off if that makes you comfortable."

"Completely off the table?"

"Completely."

Stiles mimics wiping down a long countertop. Peter nods. Stiles does too.

"All right. No more ring fiascos."

"Deal."

They shake hands like business partners. It feels right, like they've talked something out and really come to a satisfying conclusion.

Except for, well.

"It doesn't have to be _completely_ off the table," Stiles hedges. "I mean, someday. Maybe. We could talk about marriage."

"We could?"

"It might be nice, being a husband. Doing our taxes together. Picking out some nice rings." He reaches out to trace the seam on Peter's sleeve. "Someday."

“I can live with someday,” Peter says. “But perhaps you should be the one to propose.”

“Really?”

“It might take some of the stress off your shoulders of waiting for me to do it.”

“You don’t want the honor of coming up with an elaborate proposal and sweeping me off my feet?” Stiles asks, hardly believing that Peter is forgoing the opportunity to take center stage and wow somebody.

“I was thinking,” Peter says. “It would be nice to be swept off my own feet for once.” He raises his eyebrows. “You think you can handle the challenge?”

Stiles laughs. “I think I can.” He grins, an idea coming to mind. “What do you think about a flash mob proposal?”

“Keep working at it,” Peter says.

And okay, Stiles thinks he really will.

**Author's Note:**

> The Bing Crosby song that's playing at the end (and is in the title) is I Can't Begin to Tell You, which is not only a lovely song, but also a great example of how I think Stiles feels throughout most of this story. Full of love, full of affection, but not even remotely sure how to express it.
> 
> The other song mentioned is Al Bowlly's The Very Thought of You. If you can't already tell, I am a huge fan of music from the 30s/40s that just makes you want to sway around a room with someone who smells nice.


End file.
